Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Wednesday March 05, 2008 @11:17AM
from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

SubComdrTaco writes "A controller developed at Carnegie Mellon University allows computer users to
manipulate three-dimensional images and explore virtual environments not only through sight and sound, but by using their sense of touch. It simulates a hand's responses to touch because it relies on a part that floats in a magnetic field rather than on mechanical linkages and cables, according to Ralph L. Hollis, a Carnegie Mellon professor who developed the controller.
The controller — like a joystick topped with a block that can be grasped — has just one moving part and rests in a bowl-like structure connected to a computer. Two of the controllers can be used simultaneously to pick up and move virtual objects on a monitor.
In a demonstration Tuesday, visitors to Hollis' lab were invited to move an image of a pin across a plate of various textures, causing the controller to bump along ripples, vibrate across fine striations and glide across smooth areas.
On one computer, users could "feel" the contours of a virtual rabbit.
Hollis said his researchers had built 10 of the devices, six of which were to be sent to other universities across the country and in Canada, and that a new company, Butterfly Haptics, would begin marketing the device in June or July.
The controller, which Hollis said will cost "much less" than $50,000, could enable a would-be surgeon to operate on a virtual human organ and sense the texture of tissue or give a designer the feeling of fitting a part into a virtual jet engine, or might also be used to convey the feeling of wind under the wings of unmanned military planes."

The controller, which Hollis said will cost "much less" than $50,000, could enable a would-be surgeon to operate on a virtual human organ and sense the texture of tissue

Let's get a bunch of complaints out of the way right now and point out the obvious: that such virtual surgery would only be an educational tool and would, for obvious reasons, be completely unsuitable as a "telecommuting surgeon" solution.

The maglev interface can exert enough force to make objects feel reassuringly solid, says Hollis, resisting as much as 40 newtons of force before it shifts even a millimetre.

What worries me about this is the reverse of this. If a little wand can resist a 40N force, a miscalculation in the simulation software could presumably easily apply a 40N force to a joint which shouldn't have 40N applied to it...

Especially if the evolution of this device is to make it bigger/more immersive.